For the
time range, there were 3,572 synthetic cannabinoid-related phone calls made to
poison centers in the US. This is a 229% increase from the same period of time for
2014. Almost 81% of phone calls were regarding males. Median age was 26 years,
with a range of 7 months – 72 years.

The most
common adverse effects included agitation (35% of cases), tachycardia (29% of
cases), and drowsiness/tiredness (26.3% of cases).

In 11.3%
of the 2,961 phone calls for which a medical outcome was reported, 11.3% of
cases (335 total) had a major adverse effects, which essentially means that
there were life threatening signs or symptoms or a result of residual
disability or disfigurement).

Fifteen
deaths were reported. Fourteen of the fifteen deaths (93.3%) were single
substance acute intoxications. One death involved poly-substance use.

92.7% of
reported use was intentional exposure.

Most
common other substances used in combination with synthetic cannabinoids were
ethanol (23% of cases), marijuana (16.5% of cases), and benzodiazepines
(11.0%).

Note: The
report did not include any discussion of case history surrounding the exposures resulting in adverse effects, toxicology results from any of the reported cases or even information that the drug of interest was analytically confirmed in a biological matrix, and microscopic and macroscopic
findings at autopsy. All of this is important information that makes a complete case report.

If you’ve
followed this blog for any length of time, you should not be surprised at any
of these findings. I’ll end by repeating
what I did in the blog post cited above…

Synthetic
cannabinoids have been and will continue to be a major issue in the US. They
are public health nightmares. These recent hospitalizations (and the now noted
increase in poison center calls) are not surprising to me and should not be
surprising to anyone that follows this subject. These adverse effects are the
norm. The vast majority of people using these substances and products are
consuming substances of unknown
identity with unknown pharmacological
and toxicological profiles in unknown
combinations at unknown dosages. This
reckless and dangerous behavior will
result in serious adverse health effects.